Opening Thoughts
Last week we lit the first Advent candle of hope. This week, the candle of peace – a second thing we long for, and that God promises as God comes to dwell among us and with us.
Even when we can’t clear away the hard and stressful things make life and the world smooth sailing, can we perhaps clear a space within it – claim and clear a little time and place, to reconnect with Peace – the peace God promises, a peace not dependent on everything in the world being peaceful and smooth, a peace that comes from somewhere else and that we bring to, rather than gain from the world and the time we live in?
Just this week, this quotation came my way: “True serenity is inner peace that allows us to view the world realistically. We are involved yet detached at the same time. There can be storms surrounding us, but at the centre of ourselves, all is calm.”
Reading and Meditation
I want to share with you a story about a man who lived in a troubled time, and who took a lot of the trouble into himself – internalized, made it his own, and very nearly let it kill him.
The name of the man is Elijah, and by the way he handles things – as open as he can be to the world around him, and at the same time as opened as he can be to God, he is a prophet of God to the people of his time and still a prophet to us – someone who helps us see how and where God is, and is at work among us.
Elijah lives in a troubled time. The people of Israel are well past their best days and the kingdom – now divided and in tatters, is in bad shape. Corruption at the top, poverty everywhere else, no turning point in sight, sickness all through the land on every level, no light appearing on the dark horizon.
In the midst of this King Ahab has a plan to make Israel good again. With the help of his queen, Jezebel from Sidon, he brings in a new religion – the worship of a prosperity god named Baal that a lot of the other people around them are worshipping. Baal promises family and tribal well-being, material prosperity and national success to any who worship him. So Ahab gives Jezebel the green light to start building temples to Baal and teaching the people to worship Baal, instead of just Yahweh their real God.
A lot of people get on board. Hundreds or priests and prophets sign on. Except for Elijah. He sees this new religion not as a solution, but as part of the problem. He gets into a running public fight with Ahab and Jezebel and all the recently-converted prophets and priests of Baal about it.
It is a really turbulent, conflicted time to live in. No peace in the land.
And it only gets worse when Elijah faces off with almost 1000 of the false prophets and priests in a big public confrontation – a 700-BCE-style political debate and religious contest to see which God – Baal or Yahweh – is the true one. It’s winner take all, loser lose all. Elijah, standing up for Yahweh, wins. The prophets and priests of Baal lose – lose decisively, and lose their lives for it.
But instead of bringing resolution of the conflict and a concession of defeat from Ahab and Jezebel, it only ups the ante. Jezebel, not a good loser, puts out a contract on Elijah, sends the military out against him, and tells him he’s as good as dead. His determination to win and to beat the other side was no real solution – no way to peace.
Which brings us to the part of the story I want to read to you from I Kings 19:1-18:
When Elijah hears of Queen Jezebel’s intent to have him killed, he takes off. Leaves the land of Judah and runs far into the desert. He needs to get away, and out in the wilderness he is ready just to die. It’s the only way he can imagine this story and his life having any resolution even half-ways peaceful.
“Just let me go,” he says to God, as he sits in the shade of a solitary shrub far out in the desert. “I have done all I could do. It’s made no difference for good. Everyone has turned against you, and I am alone. So if you care for me at all, just kill me now, so I can at least die in peace.”
Instead of killing him though, God sends an angel – once day, the next day, and the day after that again to give Elijah food to eat and water to drink, and, in his replenished strength, to travel even farther into the wilderness. For forty days Elijah walks until he reaches Mt Sinai, the old and traditional mountain of God, which he begins to climb, eventually taking shelter for the night in a little cave.
That’s a pretty sacred space for the people of Israel that Elijah has found his way to, and crawled into. It wasn’t easy for him to get there. It may even have seemed a place of last resort. Even a place of desperation. At the very least, a place to escape the world he feels he can no longer live in.
I wonder … where is your sacred space to retreat to, and what do you expect it to be -- a happy place, or a holy place? And what might be the difference between the two?
Anyway, whatever Elijah's expectation was...
It’s there that God comes to him. “Elijah,”
God says, “what are you doing here?”
“Oh Lord Almighty,” Elijah says as he said before, ““I have done all I could do. It’s made no difference for good. Everyone has turned against you, and I am alone. So if you care for me at all, just kill me now, so I can at least die in peace.”
It sounds familiar. Elijah has outrun Jezebel and her army, but has not outrun his anguish. He carries his troubles with him, and it’s all he can see and all he can say about himself, and he offers it.
“Come here,” God says. “Come out of the cave and stand on the mountain. I want you to see me when I pass by.”
All at once, a strong wind shook the mountain and shattered the rocks. But the Lord was not in the wind. Next, there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. Then there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.
Hmm. So far Elijah had been trying to prove Yahweh to the people with exactly those kind of things -- with powerful acts of wonder, with great rhetorical flourish, with awesome feats of might.
Finally, there was a gentle breeze – a sound of total quiet, the sound of sheer silence, and when Elijah heard it, he covered his face with his coat. He went out and stood at the entrance to the cave.
The Lord asked, “Elijah, why are you here?”
“Oh Lord Almighty,” Elijah says as he said before, “I have done all I could do. It’s made no difference for good. Everyone has turned against you, and I am alone. So if you care for me at all, just kill me now, so I can at least die in peace.”
Still
the recitation of woe is the only reality – the most real thing Elijah can see. He is still overwhelmed and undone by the world's way -- and Baal's way -- of measuring success and meaning.
And the Lord said, “Elijah, go back to the part of the desert near Damascus. When you get there, I have some people I want you to help put in charge of things, who will start putting things right. Because you know what? You aren’t alone. There are still 7,000 Israelites who have refused to worship Baal, and they will live.”
In other words, all is not as lost as you think. You think you are a lone little voice in the land. But you know what? There are 7,000 little voices in the land, and they are not going to go away. In fact, it is through them and through you that I am, and that I will speak to the people.
And in the strength of that command and promise spoken in a place of seclusion and from the heart of sheer stillness and quiet, Elijah finds the peace he needs, the faith he thought he had lost, and the community he didn’t know about until that moment, to help him carry on as he is called to back in the midst of the turmoil and trouble of his time.
Not just to die in peace, which is not God’s good will for him yet. Nor to be able to stay in some private refuge just for his own well-being, which is never a complete spirituality.
But to return to the world and the woes of his day with peace and reassurance, with deepened faith in the promise and presence of God, and with awareness of community and companions along the way that he simply was not aware of before.
What gifts he receives in the holy quietness outside that sacred hiding spot.
So where or what is your sacred hiding spot, when you need peace and reassurance?
Where is your place – not just your happy place where you try to leave your troubles behind, but your holy place where your troubles and your God can meet face to face – and how do you get there, for God to be able to speak to you from the heart of sheer stillness and quiet?
What will it take for you to run there, to speak out the troubles you are carrying, and to become aware of the community and companions who will be your strength in your times of trouble?
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